Each strategic pillar encompasses three-year objectives that represent the main areas of focus for the McMaster IT Strategic Plan.
These objectives further cascade into a series of initiatives that will require investments and resources and will deliver the outcomes necessary to move closer to achieving the McMaster IT Vision. Corresponding initiatives will unfold over the next three years. Many will be undertaken concurrently, while others have interlinked dependencies that require sequenced implementations. A high level timeline is available at the end of the document and will provide a visual representation of the anticipated priorities across all initiatives.
A Connected McMaster Community
Institutional Adaptiveness
The impact of the McMaster IT Strategic Plan will be felt across all areas of the institution and will require the institution to engage, adapt and evolve. Creating a capacity for change will involve substantial IT investments, a strongly connected McMaster campus community, and transparency in the decision making and funding of technologies and services. There is a demand for excellence in communicating needs, actions and successes. There is also a need for increased commitment towards embracing standards and sustainability.
One IT Community
Providing McMaster with transformative information technologies and services depends on a cohesive and aligned IT community, across the full institution, and a strong IT culture. Investments in career frameworks, learning and development opportunities and adoption of McMaster IT Guiding Principles will contribute to the creation of an engaged, optimistic, trusted community of IT professionals. Delivering exceptional service and maintaining a commitment to core technologies and innovative solutions will result from an integrated IT support services model that leverages the best organizational structures and delivery sources.
Seamless Foundation
Optimized IT Infrastructure
Creating a ‘rock solid’ IT infrastructure will provide a stronger IT foundation for McMaster’s teaching, learning and research environments. A commitment to scalability, standardization, stability and sustainability across all of the underpinning IT components will result in optimization. This includes a focus on enhanced capabilities across a consolidated set of facilities and systems without sacrificing end users’ needs. Infrastructure as a term is used broadly in this context, and includes all aspects of the important foundations that are used to deliver the critical building blocks and platforms that ensure other systems and solutions can be delivered. This includes the advancement of McMaster’s IT Security posture and the implementation of a modern and cohesive identity and access management system.
Enhanced Productivity Systems
Trusted and easy to use productivity systems, accessed daily by end users to complete the tasks necessary for their roles on campus, are a critical element for institutional success. This includes ‘utility’ IT systems and tools and should provide value and enhanced capabilities that meet broad needs across the campuses. This objective will focus on improving systems that are already in use at McMaster, taking them to the next level through enhancements to usability, accessibility and delivery.
Transformative Information Technologies and Services
Expedited Collaboration and Decision Making
McMaster‘s academic and administrative activities require collaborative and informed decision making. Investments in platforms and processes will focus first on implementing solutions that have already been identified as core requirements and then will create opportunities for the discovery and implementation of new initiatives that support the ongoing digitalization of McMaster.
Reimagining the McMaster IT Experience
McMaster’s evolution into a 21st century Canadian university with world class experiences for researchers, students, faculty and staff relies on investments in leading edge, data-driven technologies and innovations. Advanced technologies create a sense of pride and appreciation both for the individual delivering the solutions as well as the end user who experiences them. Delightful technologies, those that engage and create pleasure or excitement, that can offer unlimited potential for advanced and imaginative solutions to meet campus challenges will elevate McMaster to new capabilities and bring us closer to achieving the IT strategic vision.